Inventing Japan

1853-1964

Author  Ian Buruma
Inventing Japan

In a single short book as elegant as it is wise, Ian Buruma makes sense of the most fateful span of Japan’s history, the period that saw as dramatic a transformation as any country has ever known. In the course of little more than a hundred years from the day Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in his black ships, this insular, preindustrial realm mutated into an expansive military dictatorship that essentially supplanted the British, French, Dutch, and American empires in Asia before plunging to utter ruin, eventually emerging under American tutelage as a pseudo-Western-style democracy and economic dynamo.

What explains the seismic changes that thrust this small island nation so violently onto the world stage? In part, Ian Buruma argues, the story…

$23.00
November 9, 2004
Select a Retailer:
The Romantic Revolution The Korean War

The Korean War

Bruce Cumings
Uncivil Society

Uncivil Society

Stephen Kotkin
Prehistory

Prehistory

Colin Renfrew
The Christian World

The Christian World

Martin Marty
A Short History of Medicine

A Short History of Medicine

F. González-Crussi 
The Hellenistic Age

The Hellenistic Age

Peter Green
Nonviolence

Nonviolence

Mark Kurlansky
Baseball

Baseball

George Vecsey
Infinite Ascent

Infinite Ascent

David Berlinski
London

London

A.N. Wilson
Storm from the East

Storm from the East

Milton Viorst
California

California

Kevin Starr
Nazism and War

Nazism and War

Richard Bessel
The City

The City

Joel Kotkin
A Room of One's Own

A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf
Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Wassily Kandinsky; Translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp; Introduction and Notes by Lisa Florman
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Ludwig Wittgenstein; Translated by Alexander Booth; Introduction by Jan Zwicky
The Lives of the Caesars

The Lives of the Caesars

Suetonius; Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Tom Holland
Down and Out in Paris and London Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell
Khosrow and Shirin

Khosrow and Shirin

Nezami Ganjavi; Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Dick Davis
The Penguin Book of Elegy

The Penguin Book of Elegy

Edited with an Introduction by Andrew Motion and Stephen Regan
The Portable Feminist Reader

The Portable Feminist Reader

Edited by Roxane Gay
Birds as Individuals Abortion Stories

Abortion Stories

Edited with an Introduction by Karen Weingarten; Foreword by Rebecca Traister; Afterword by Renee Bracey Sherman
A Room of One's Own

A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf
Vita Nuova

Vita Nuova

Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri
Cold Mountain Poems

Cold Mountain Poems

Hanshan; Edited and Translated by Peter Harris